The silence broke first.
It cracked apart the second Tiago shifted his weight and one of the Castellanos scouts moved his hand toward his weapon. Bastián’s men reacted before anyone spoke, bodies snapping into position with the kind of speed that came from training and expectation. The dock exploded into motion all at once.
“Down!” someone shouted.
Then the first wolf lunged.
Steel flashed in the fading light, one of Bastián’s guards met the attack head-on, shoulder slamming into chest, both of them hitting the dock boards hard enough to shake the planks under my feet. Another scout drew a blade and stepped fast toward the convoy line. I heard the scrape of metal, the sharp bark of a command, and then the wet sound of a body hitting wood.
I moved before I thought, not because I wanted
